34 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
For a study of this favorite emblem of the kings of Lagash (Shirpurla), 
we are indebted to M. Heuzey’s description in ‘“Découvertes en Chaldée,”’ pp. 
261-264, plate 43, 43 bis, also “Le Vase d’argent d’Entéména.”’ ‘This wonderful 
silver vase (fig. 56), on a copper base, is by far the finest existing monument of the 
earliest metal work of Chaldea. The decoration is in two bands or registers, as 
in so many of the archaic cylinders. M. Heuzey remarks that this system of double 
zones of animals was transmitted to the Assyrian and Phenician bowls and through 
the Mycenzan to the decoration of the Greek ceramic work of an Oriental style. 
(“Comptes Rendus, 

ters, with which only we have to do here, is composed of four lion-headed eagles, two 
of which seize a lion with each talon, while one of the alternate eagles seizes a couple 
of deer, and the other a couple of ibexes. The whole circle is composed with the 
most elaborate bilateral symmetry, and the lions each bite at the head of the deer 
or ibex opposite him. These fantastic and monstrous birds have, as M. Heuzey 
remarks, remained popular in oriental story, as the rok of the Arabs, the karshipta 
of the Persians, the human-headed garudha of India, and the harpies of the Greeks. 
From this eagle, in its heraldic attitude necessitated by its attack on the two animals, 
was derived the two-headed eagle, in the effort to complete the bilateral symmetry 


ee 
of the bird when represented with an eagle head turned to one side, like the double 
face of the human bifrons. ‘This double-headed eagle appears in Hittite art (figs. 
854, 855, 856) and is continued down through Turkish and modern European royal 
symbolism. ‘The lion-headed eagle would appear to have belonged originally to the 
special worship of either Ishtar or Bau and Ningirsu, the gods of Lagash; it was 
called Im-gig and was the particular emblem of the kings of Lagash. We find it 
represented with lions in the art of the first known king of Lagash, Ur-nina, on a 
square, perforated, earthenware plaque from the royal palace (fig. 73); or even 
earlier, without the lions, on a base of the date of Mesilim, King of Kish, supposed to 
be 4000 B. C. (fig. 74). The bird Im-gig is mentioned in the inscriptions of Gudea 
(see Thureau-Dangin, “Le Songe de Goudéa,” in Acad. des Inscr., 1901, pp. 112, 
and Z. A., 1903, p. 191). We there read, following M. Thureau-Dangin’s trans- 

